The Feb event, UB loses their top 2 and the Isildur1 'reveal'

Well now that the new year's hangover (oh Happy New Year to you too!) is well and truly behind us... unless you're one of those over-the-top degenerates :D it's time to look towards the fun stuff coming up for you, O poker player. The Feb edition of the India Poker Championship is all set to take place from 10th-13th February on board Casino Royale in Panjim, Goa. With the IPC Player of the Year (POY) started in December, there is a lot of interest in the leaderboard and many will look to break into it while those who already have will look to score more points and consolidate their positions in the POY race. Here's what the Feb 2011 schedule looks like:-

• 10th Feb - IPC 5k Freezeout
• 11th Feb - IPC 10k Freezeout
• 12th Feb - IPC 20k Freezeout
• 13th Feb - IPC 5k Freezeout

As of now our India Champion Aditya Sushant is on the top of the leaderboard and given that he intends to play all events possibly, he will be the man to beat. That said, many of the known faces who have not scored any points thus far will be looking to make their mark on the event. Besides bragging rights of being the POY, there is also an IPC sponsorship worth INR 1,00,000 for the eventual POY of the 2010-2011 season.
To register for the Feb edition you can visit our website at www.indiapokerchampionship.com or alternately you can also register at this link.

Some interesting bits of news from the other side of the globe. The first is the departure of Phil Hellmuth from his primary and long-time sponsor Ultimate Bet which came as a bit of a surprise to a few people even though there had been plenty of rumors circulating for a few weeks prior to the official announcement when the Poker Brat showed at an event without the yellow UB logo branding on his clothing. Phil's departure was closely followed by another senior pro leaving the site - Annie Duke. While in recent times both players have been in the media more for their personal behaviour or their ugly clashes with other pros (here's some vitriol unloaded by Kid Poker), it cannot be denied that both, and waayyyy more so Hellmuth, have formidable reputations in the poker world. While I don't think UB will care too much about the loss of Duke, Phil Hellmuth's departure is definitely gonna put a dampener on things. All parties have played nice and wished each other well with UB saying its gonna focus on building a young team with the likes of Joe Sebok, Eric Baldwin, Maria Ho and others. Phil on the other hand is obviously in talks with lots of entities not in the least of which are other poker sites. He tweeted a day or two ago that he was heading into a meeting with Full Tilt. But most folks believe that Helmuth is too big a brand to be part of a team. He can provide every advantage to a potential sponsor by being the face of their brand. That said there are enough of rumors about Phil starting his own poker site which in my personal opinion seems a touch unlikely. Nothing to back that up... just a gut feeling.

The second piece of news is of course the much awaited reveal of Isildur1, the mysterious online sensation who played heavy stakes poker and was and down by millions across the course of his play! For a long time when those huge games were taking place on Full Tilt and PokerStars, the identity of this player remained unknown. As time went on, there was speculation about a young Swedish player named Viktor Blom being the anonymous Isildur1. That speculation turned into heated discussions and debates on various forums as weeks went by. At the time, Blom also started playing in live events and at a point in time, it was all but certain that Blom was indeed Isildur1. About a couple of weeks back, PokerStars announced that they had signed on the player known as Isildur1 and would reveal his true identity at one of their events in the coming weeks. That event was the PCA and the announcement happened this past Saturday and Isildur1 was indeed Viktor Blom or vice-versa if you like. By the time the 'great reveal' happened, there was no mystery so in the words of one of the forum posters, it was like, "going to a movie, the ending to which you already knew...". Still now that the news is official, his many fans can now follow (with any remaining doubts rested) Blom as he continues to operate a high stakes both online as well as on the felt.

I end this post by saying watch out for some excitement next week! There's a satellite planned in the run-up to the Feb event. We will giving seat packages so stay tuned to our Facebook profile and pages (1. 2) for more information.